So Tim Berners-Lee opposes net neutrality regulations?

After a long hiatus, Sir Tim is back on the Net Neutrality case:

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn’t pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will.

But what do the neutrality bills actually say? Here’s the relevant part of Snowe-Dorgan:

(5) only prioritize content, applications, or services accessed by a user that is made available via the Internet within the network of such broadband service provider based on the type of content, applications, or services and the level of service purchased by the user, without charge for such prioritization;

And the relevant part of the Markey Amendment:

If a broadband network provider prioritizes or offers enhanced quality of service to data of a particular type, it must prioritize or offer enhanced quality of service to all data of that type (regardless of the origin or ownership of such data) without imposing a surcharge or other consideration for such prioritization or enhanced quality of service.

Does Sir Tim support or oppose these particular bills? Based on the above, I would have to say he opposes, so I’ve asked for clarification by leaving a comment on his blog. It was flagged as spam and not displayed, and you can make of that what you will. My guess is my comment will remain buried until after the vote is taken in the Senate.

And what does SaveTheInternet.com say about charging a fee for voice-grade QoS? Read on, humble traveler:

Critics of Net Neutrality measures in Congress have claimed there are no historical examples of abuse by ISPs and therefore government should not interfere. However, Jason Miller of WebProNews writes about an example of abuse coming out of Canada that shows how the words of intent coming from the men who run phone and cable companies have not been considered as evidence of what will happen here in the U.S.

The “Abuse” is simply a Quality of Service enhancement. Go see for yourself:

Shaw is now able to offer its High Speed Internet customers the opportunity to improve the quality of Internet telephony services offered by third party providers. For an additional $10 per month Shaw will provide a quality of service (QoS) feature that will enhance these services when used over the Shaw High Speed Internet network.

Save the Internet says for-fee QoS is “abuse.” Sir Tim says he’s in favor of for-fee QoS, and he says he supports Save The Internet. Something don’t exactly compute here, does it?

It seems that there’s a lot of manipulation going on around this issue. When you have these moldy old “heroes of the revolution” rolled out on their wheelchairs to praise the ruling clique with vague platitudes, there’s a distinctly Soviet feel to the dialog.

UPDATE: The last time Sir Tim posted in net neutrality he was met with a bunch of comments he couldn’t handle because he obviously wasn’t familiar with the actual legislation. This time, he’s simply turned off the comments (they’re rejected as “spam”).

Why is Tim Berners-Lee afraid to debate?